Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I The terrestrial cryosphere
- 2A Snowfall and snow cover
- 2B Avalanches
- 3 Glaciers and ice caps
- 4 Ice sheets
- 5 Frozen ground and permafrost
- 6 Freshwater ice
- Part II The marine cryosphere
- Part III The cryosphere past and future
- Part IV Applications
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- Plate section
2A - Snowfall and snow cover
from Part I - The terrestrial cryosphere
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Part I The terrestrial cryosphere
- 2A Snowfall and snow cover
- 2B Avalanches
- 3 Glaciers and ice caps
- 4 Ice sheets
- 5 Frozen ground and permafrost
- 6 Freshwater ice
- Part II The marine cryosphere
- Part III The cryosphere past and future
- Part IV Applications
- Glossary
- References
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
History
The hexagonal form of snowflakes was first noted by Johannes Kepler in 1611. Robert Hooke revealed the variety of crystalline structures as seen through a microscope in 1665. Similar studies were performed in the mid eighteenth century in France and England. Bentley and Humphries (1931) published a book with over 2,500 illustrations of snowflake photographs showing a variety of snow crystals.
The earliest snow surveys were made at Mt. Rose, Nevada in 1906 by James Church, and by 1909–1910 he was surveying a network of stations. Snow surveys provide an inventory of the total amount of snow covering a drainage basin or a given region. Church also invented the Mt. Rose sampler – a hollow steel tube designed so that each inch of water in the sample weighs 1 ounce (28.35 g). Snow surveying began at locations in several western states between 1919 and 1929 and in the latter year California organized cooperative snow surveys (Stafford, 1959).
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- The Global CryospherePast, Present and Future, pp. 11 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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